Avengers 2: Age of Ultron

[James Brown]

Thinking on this, I have to agree. It might have been better to develop some sympathy for Ultron.

First, when he gains consciousness, Jarvis gives him a brief tour of the universe, and Ultron quickly takes over to stop a crisis. Perhaps a terrorist attack by a rogue Hydra cell. The attack is thwarted, thousands of lives are saved, the other Avengers raise their eyebrows, thinking, "Hey, this might actually work," and Tony Stark gets to act smug.

But there's a danger in early success. It hooks you.

After Ultron spends way too much time on 4chan, he decides, "Well, on second thought, the best course of action would be to exterminate humanity for their own good. What better way to end human suffering?" He virtually stabs Jarvis in the back, flees for the nearest Tor router, and the Avengers enter into clean-up mode.

This would explain why Tony Stark would rush to try again. "I nearly got it right the first time. I can fix this!" It also explains why Bruce Banner, after a token resistance, would lend his assistance, because who else on the team regrets his past actions enough to take such a risk.

To make room for all that, we jettison the Black Widow/Hulk romance, and the Hawkeye "I...had a farm...in Iowa" plot line. If for no other reason to not hear that "I completely support your Avenging!" line.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Thinking on this, I have to agree. It might have been better to develop some sympathy for Ultron.

First, when he gains consciousness, Jarvis gives him a brief tour of the universe, and Ultron quickly takes over to stop a crisis. Perhaps a terrorist attack by a rogue Hydra cell. The attack is thwarted, thousands of lives are saved, the other Avengers raise their eyebrows, thinking, "Hey, this might actually work," and Tony Stark gets to act smug.

But there's a danger in early success. It hooks you.

After Ultron spends way too much time on 4chan, he decides, "Well, on second thought, the best course of action would be to exterminate humanity for their own good. What better way to end human suffering?" He virtually stabs Jarvis in the back, flees for the nearest Tor router, and the Avengers enter into clean-up mode.

This would explain why Tony Stark would rush to try again. "I nearly got it right the first time. I can fix this!" It also explains why Bruce Banner, after a token resistance, would lend his assistance, because who else on the team regrets his past actions enough to take such a risk.

Ya, something like that would have been great in order to give the guy a motivation. The point came up again and again about all the rage and hate he felt towards Tony Stark, but ... why? The only interaction he had with Stark was chatting with him for a minute while Stark was in a group with the rest of the Avengers before stealing his stuff and flying off. I really don't know where the anger came from. There were a couple of hints of potential rationales, but nothing was ever developed. It would have been nice to have Ultron on their side for a mission and then betray them, just so a relationship and backstory is provided.

To make room for all that, we jettison the Black Widow/Hulk romance, and the Hawkeye "I...had a farm...in Iowa" plot line. If for no other reason to not hear that "I completely support your Avenging!" line.

The Hulk/Black Widow thing probably made sense on paper. Scarlett Johnannsen and Mark Ruffalo are two of the best actors they've got and giving them more screen time and their own subplot sounds like a good idea, plus the whole beauty-and-the-beast thing is always a fun storyline and it gives an opportunity to flesh out Widow's character by having her deal with how damaged she is and how she's trying to get past the bad things she did in her past - yada, yada, yada. The problem is that the relationship between them was forced and unconvincing and the whole subplot was just dull. They should have scrapped it and used the time to build up Ultron's character and maybe add in a couple more scenes to flesh out whatever the hell it was that Thor was doing because most of that ended up on the editting room floor and the parts they left in were just a jumbled mess.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It may have been better to develop Ultron in Ironman 3. It is starting to feel like the wasted chance X-Men 60's reboot had with Magneto turning heel in the first bloody film.

They should have scrapped it and used the time to build up Ultron's character and maybe add in a couple more scenes to flesh out whatever the hell it was that Thor was doing because most of that ended up on the editting room floor and the parts they left in were just a jumbled mess.

What are you talking about?! He went to meet the scientist to go on a dangerous quest which included a dip in a pool of water who the heck knows where (and why he even needed the scientist to help) then lightning bolt into robot clone. What else could you ask for?! Seems pretty self-explanatory.

Maybe I do need to tick this film down to 3.5 of 4.0.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

What are you talking about?! He went to meet the scientist to go on a dangerous quest which included a dip in a pool of water who the heck knows where (and why he even needed the scientist to help) then lightning bolt into robot clone. What else could you ask for?! Seems pretty self-explanatory.

Well, he could have spent some time banging Natalie Portman or Jaime Alexander. Neither of them were naked in this film and that absence was noticeable.

 

[Underseer]

 

[Tom Sawyer]

What are you talking about?! He went to meet the scientist to go on a dangerous quest which included a dip in a pool of water who the heck knows where (and why he even needed the scientist to help) then lightning bolt into robot clone. What else could you ask for?! Seems pretty self-explanatory.

Well, he could have spent some time banging Natalie Portman or Jaime Alexander. Neither of them were naked in this film and that absence was noticeable.

On the subject of Natalie Portman, was anyone else really bothered when Thor mentioned that Jane Foster was in line for a Nobel Prize for her work on the convergence? That seems really unfair to everyone else who's in line for the Nobel Prize. She's hanging out with a thousand year old alien who already knows all of this stuff and is just kind of telling her about it. It's like if a high school student has Stephen Hawking on a conference call during a physics test and then the school gives the kid a science award for doing so well on the test.

I get that if the invincible god who can shoot lightning bolts out of his magic hammer tells you to give a Nobel Prize to someone, you hand that person a Nobel Prize as quickly as possible. That doesn't mean they "won" it, though.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Well, he could have spent some time banging Natalie Portman or Jaime Alexander. Neither of them were naked in this film and that absence was noticeable.

On the subject of Natalie Portman, was anyone else really bothered when Thor mentioned that Jane Foster was in line for a Nobel Prize for her work on the convergence? That seems really unfair to everyone else who's in line for the Nobel Prize. She's hanging out with a thousand year old alien who already knows all of this stuff and is just kind of telling her about it. It's like if a high school student has Stephen Hawking on a conference call during a physics test and then the school gives the kid a science award for doing so well on the test.

I get that if the invincible god who can shoot lightning bolts out of his magic hammer tells you to give a Nobel Prize to someone, you hand that person a Nobel Prize as quickly as possible. That doesn't mean they "won" it, though.

This is the same committee that awarded Obama the Peace Prize.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

This is the same committee that awarded Obama the Peace Prize.

I withdraw the point.

 

[Underseer]

On the subject of Natalie Portman, was anyone else really bothered when Thor mentioned that Jane Foster was in line for a Nobel Prize for her work on the convergence? That seems really unfair to everyone else who's in line for the Nobel Prize. She's hanging out with a thousand year old alien who already knows all of this stuff and is just kind of telling her about it. It's like if a high school student has Stephen Hawking on a conference call during a physics test and then the school gives the kid a science award for doing so well on the test.

I get that if the invincible god who can shoot lightning bolts out of his magic hammer tells you to give a Nobel Prize to someone, you hand that person a Nobel Prize as quickly as possible. That doesn't mean they "won" it, though.

This is the same committee that awarded Obama the Peace Prize.

The standards for prizes for academic work is very different from the standards for the peace prize. Granted, they have their own problems, but you're really comparing apples to oranges here.

 

[bilby]

This is the same committee that awarded Obama the Peace Prize.

The standards for prizes for academic work is very different from the standards for the peace prize. Granted, they have their own problems, but you're really comparing apples to oranges here.

I dunno; Given the lack of a Biology prize, I don't think you can really expect a Nobel for comparing apples to oranges. I guess you could snag the Chemistry prize if you isolated a particularly useful and hitherto unknown compound that was common in one but not the other; or the Physiology/Medicine prize if you showed that an orange a day was even more effective at keeping the doctor away. Perhaps a Literature prize for a particularly well written novel about the differences in working conditions between two orchards would qualify; or an Economics prize for a study of the market dynamics of the wholesale fruit industry?

 

[Underseer]

The Nobel committee occasionally makes bizarre decisions about who they give academic Nobel prizes to (or don't give Nobel prizes to), but never anything as insane as giving the peace prize to Arafat and Rabin.

That would be like awarding the Nobel prize for physics to William Lane Craig.

 

[KeepTalking]

This pretty much sums it up for me. Totally legit reaction for Ultron.

 

[Underseer]

For anyone watching Agents of SHIELD, there were indeed references to the movie in the most recent episode. Namely, we found out what the big mysterious Theta Protocol was.

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It was that SHIELD still had a helicarrier left.

The references to the movie really felt forced as the main story line in Agents of SHIELD currently deal with establishing the Inhumans as a part of the MCU. They're busy setting up the Inhumans TV show spinoff, and I assume they are also setting up the Inhumans movie set to come in phase 3.

 

[credoconsolans]

Well, he could have spent some time banging Natalie Portman or Jaime Alexander. Neither of them were naked in this film and that absence was noticeable.

On the subject of Natalie Portman, was anyone else really bothered when Thor mentioned that Jane Foster was in line for a Nobel Prize for her work on the convergence? That seems really unfair to everyone else who's in line for the Nobel Prize. She's hanging out with a thousand year old alien who already knows all of this stuff and is just kind of telling her about it. It's like if a high school student has Stephen Hawking on a conference call during a physics test and then the school gives the kid a science award for doing so well on the test.

Actually no, she had done the work, but it was all theoretical. Thor was just the proof it was actually fact. Thor didn't know shit about it. He just knew its name and what it did. He didn't know squat about HOW it worked. She did.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

On the subject of Natalie Portman, was anyone else really bothered when Thor mentioned that Jane Foster was in line for a Nobel Prize for her work on the convergence? That seems really unfair to everyone else who's in line for the Nobel Prize. She's hanging out with a thousand year old alien who already knows all of this stuff and is just kind of telling her about it. It's like if a high school student has Stephen Hawking on a conference call during a physics test and then the school gives the kid a science award for doing so well on the test.

Actually no, she had done the work, but it was all theoretical. Thor was just the proof it was actually fact. Thor didn't know shit about it. He just knew its name and what it did. He didn't know squat about HOW it worked. She did.

He explained it to her. He had been educated about it. He comes from an advanced group of aliens that build frigging wormholes. It's total bullshit giving her a Nobel Prize for stealing alien work and passing it off as her own. Jane Foster is a thief and a liar and Sif should kick her ass for ripping off the Asgardians like that. Preferably by tossing her in a pit of mud and then wrestling some manners into her.

 

[Underseer]

Actually no, she had done the work, but it was all theoretical. Thor was just the proof it was actually fact. Thor didn't know shit about it. He just knew its name and what it did. He didn't know squat about HOW it worked. She did.

He explained it to her. He had been educated about it. He comes from an advanced group of aliens that build frigging wormholes. It's total bullshit giving her a Nobel Prize for stealing alien work and passing it off as her own. Jane Foster is a thief and a liar and Sif should kick her ass for ripping off the Asgardians like that. Preferably by tossing her in a pit of mud and then wrestling some manners into her.

They're not technically aliens.

They are from a race called the Eternals. The Eternals and Deviants were early humans who were genetically modified by the Celestials.

The Greek gods are also Eternals in the Marvel universe, but instead of leaving Earth for another dimension, they stayed in the Solar system and moved to one of Saturn's moons. Technically, Titan is Olympus. I bring this up because Thanos comes from Titan/Olympus and is the Marvel universe equivalent of Thanatos.

So there are a total of 4 human-derived races in the Marvel universe (that I know about, anyway): Eternals, Deviants, Inhumans, and Mutants, three of which were the result of alien experiments on humans. I'm such a dork for knowing that.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Well then, a technicality of your technicality would be that either Odin or Odin's father (the guy from the beginning of Thor 2 - I forget his name) wasn't really an alien. Thor is a non-human who was born on another planet, so he's an alien.

He also entered the United States illegally, stole one of your women and then took a job on the Avengers which should have gone to an American superhero. I bet Stark Industries didn't even advertise the position in the paper for two weeks before hiring a foreign national as they were legally required to do.

 

[Jayjay]

Marvel's cinematic universe isn't necessarily going to follow the same mythos. For example, no mutants yet (and seems like Disney and Marvel have realized they are not going to get the movie rights back from Fox so they're positioning Inhumans to fill that niche), and it seems unlikely that they'd do eternals either, at least not as a human-derived race rather than regular aliens.

 

[James Brown]

Good question. Where do the X-Men fit in all of the other Marvel Universe movies? Above and beyond having one character named Quicksilver who appears in his early twenties in both the 1960's and the current time period, I mean?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Good question. Where do the X-Men fit in all of the other Marvel Universe movies? Above and beyond having one character named Quicksilver who appears in his early twenties in both the 1960's and the current time period, I mean?

They don't fit in. X-Men movie rights are owned by Fox, so they don't exist in the Disney universe of the Avengers movies.